Jfisbers  of  /Ifoen, 


A  CHARGE 


Clergy  of  the  Jurisdiction  of  Asheville 


BISHOP  OF   NORTH   CAROLINA 
1896 


CHARGE  OF  THE  BISHOP. 


Brethren  of  the  Clergy: 

The  Canons  of  the  General  Convention  do  not  undertake 
to  legislate  very  specifically  upon  the  pastoral  duties  of  a 
Bishop.  They  barely  indicate  the  minimum  of  care  and 
oversight  proper  to  the  office,  and  leave  large  liberty  to 
the  individual.  This  is  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the 
relation  of  a  bishop  to  the  Church  and  to  his  people  has  a 
deeper  foundation  than  in  the  canonical  provisions  of  any 
particular  national  church,  and  involves  duties  the  per- 
formance of  which  cannot  be  secured  by  minuteness  of 
canonical  requirements.  But  this  happy  reserve  in  our 
legislation  carries  with  it  to  a  conscientious  man  only  a 
more  constraining  sense  of  obligation.  Being  left  to  his 
own  conscience,  he  is  the  more  anxious  not  to  be  found 
wanting;  and  a  law  which  seeks  not  to  control  his  action 
elicits  his  most  earnest  endeavors  to  perceive  its  real 
requirement,  and  to  fulfil  to  the  utmost  its  spirit  and  mean- 
ing- 

In  this  spirit  of   wise  suggestion  rather  than  of   exact 

prescription  Canon  19,  Section  ix,  Title  i  of  the  Digest 
declares  that  "it  is  deemed  proper  that  every  Bishop  of 
this  Church  shall  deliver,  at  least  once  in  three  years,  a 
charge  to  the  Clergy  of  his  Diocese."  I  do  not  know  that 
what  I  have  now  to  say  to  you  deserves  to  be  dignified  by 
that  name,  in  view  of  the  weighty  and  momentous  charac- 
ter of  such  utterances  as  have  under  the  designation  of 
charges  been  put  forth  by  the  great  men  who  have  pre- 
ceded me  in  the  Church  in  North  Carolina.  But  none  the 
less  I  am  moved  to  address  you  at  this  time  upon  a  matter 
which  seems  to  me  to  be  of  the  utmost  practical  impor- 
tance, and  I  would  fain  avail  myself  of  the  above  quoted 
provisions  of  our  Canon  to  give  weight  and  authority  to 
that  which  I  shall  deliver.     I  speak  out  of  deep  conviction, 


Art 

m 


and  I  address  myself  to  the  facts  of  our  situation.  I  do 
not  feel  that  the  Canon  requires  me  thus  to  speak;  I  but 
take  advantage  of  its  provision  to  give  sanction  to  what  I 
feel  impelled  to  say. 

From  the  bottom  of  my  heart  I  thank  God  that  I  feel 
under  no  necessity  of  exhorting  the  Clergy  of  Asheville  to 
be  faithful  to  the  great  principles  and  truths  of  the  Gospel 
sent  down  to  us  from  heaven.  We  are  not  ignorant  even 
in  these  remote  mountains  of  the  unrest  and  discord  in 
certain  parts  of  the  Church,  and  we  fully  appreciate  the 
danger  which  in  some  quarters  seems  to  threaten  the  purity 
and  integrity  of  the  faith.  Knowing  these  things,  we 
rejoice  in  the  comfortable  assurance  afforded  us  by  the 
noble  Pastoral  Letter  of  1894  that  our  fathers  and  leaders 
are  sound  in  the  faith,  prompt  to  declare  and  to  defend  it. 
But  we  have  no  divisions  among  ourselves  in  these  mat- 
ters. With  one  heart  we  desire  the  prosperity  of  Christ's 
holy  Apostolic  Church,  and  with  one  mouth  we  confess  the 
faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints.  Nor  are  our  peace  and 
mutual  love  disturbed  or  threatened  by  those  who,  dissat- 
isfied with  the  worship  and  services  of  the  Church  as  she 
herself  sets  them  forth  and  orders  them,  seek  to  improve 
upon  her  ways  by  additions  and  variations  taken  from  this 
or  that  unauthorized  source.  We  possess  that  good  and 
pleasant  thing  spoken  of  by  the  Psalmist;  we  are  brethren 
and  we  dwell  together  in  unity.  I  know  of  no  jars  or 
strifes  or  divisions  among  us.  And  this  peace  and  love, 
like  the  dew  of  Hermon  which  fell  upon  the  hill  of  Zion, 
is  the  Lord's  promise  to  us,  we  humbly  trust,  of  His  bless- 
ing and  of  life  forever  more.  Thanking  Him  therefore 
for  this  happy  state,  and  rejoicing  in  mutual  love  and  con- 
fidence, let  us  address  ourselves  to  the  work  which  lies 
before  us. 

The  subject  upon  which  I  wish  to  address  you  at  this 
time  is: 

The  Duty  of  the  Clergy  of  whatever  order  to  he  Fishers  of  Men. 

I.  The  kingdom  of  God  in  the  world  hath  its  internal 
and  its  external  function,  its  duty  to  its  own  members  and 
its  duty  to  the  world.  I  do  not  propose  to  institute  any 
comparison  between  these,  or  to  endeavor  to  fix  their  rela- 
tive importance.     That  were  an  unprofitable  and  perhaps 


impossible  attempt.  All  vital  functions  are  in  their  sev- 
eral ways  essential.  But  the  peculiarity  of  some  condi- 
tion or  situation  may  give  a  temporary  importance  or 
prominence  to  some  one  function  above  the  others.  We 
see  this  in  the  very  beginning.  Our  Lord's  commission  to 
the  Apostles  in  the  concluding  words  of  St.  Matthew's  Gos- 
pel includes  the  twofold  function  of  first  converting  the 
world;  and  second,  of  bringing  those  converted  into  sacra- 
mental union  with  Christ  and  training  them  up  to  the  full 
perfection  of  Christian  life.  But  the  actual  situation  is 
plainly  indicated  by  the  form  of  the  divine  command,  and 
the  first  direction  has  reference  to  the  duty  lying  immedi- 
ately before  them:  "Go  ye  therefore  and  make  disciples  of 
all  the  nations."  And  so  the  Apostles  were  first  of  all 
preachers.  The  situation  made  them  such.  Even  the 
Deacons,  ordained  in  the  first  instance  with  special  refer- 
ence to  an  entirely  different  function  of  the  ministry,  were 
by  the  necessities  of  the  case,  forced  into  the  same  position 
as  preachers,  when  they  proved  to  have  suitable  gifts  and 
capacities.  We  are  to-day  faulted  at  times  because  we  so 
commonly  license  Deacons  to  preach,  and  put  them  in 
charge  of  congregations  and  missions.  It  is  to  be  consid- 
ered that  in  some  sort  we  but  yield  to  the  same  necessity 
which  set  St.  Stephen  to  disputing  with  the  Cyreneans  and 
Alexandrians,  and  with  them  of  Cilicia  and  of  Asia,  and 
which  sent  St.  Philip  as  the  first  Evangelist  to  Samaria  to 
preach  Christ  unto  them. 

The  first  duty  of  the  minister  of  Christ  therefore  is  to 
catch  men.  Upon  his  success  in  this  part  of  his  office  all 
his  ability  and  opportunity  to  do  the  other  parts  of  it  may 
depend.  It  was  so  in  the  beginning;  it  continues  to  be  so 
in  a  measure  still.  Even  in  those  happy  regions,  if  there 
be  any  such,  where  none  are  outside  the  pale  of  the 
Church,  multitudes  will  be  found  who  are  in  fact  without 
any  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  saving  and  sanctifying 
grace  of  Christ  in  the  heart.  These  must  be  caught.  Their 
attention  must  be  engaged,  their  sensibilities  must  be 
touched,  their  affections  must  be  called  forth  and  developed. 
By  the  hands  of  a  man  they  must  be  drawn  to  the  Man, 
that  in  Him  they  may  become  men  indeed. 

II.  In  the  multiplicity  of  duties  which  crowd  upon  the 
rector  of  a  parish,  and  in  the  business  of  administering  its 
various  departments,  and  directing  its  activities,  not  only 


his  time  is  consumed  and  his  energies  all  but  exhausted, 
but  there  is  danger  of  his  forgetting  the  main  purpose  of 
his  ministry.  Even  a  high  degree  of  spiritual  life  in  the 
minister  may  receive  such  a  bent  as  to  turn  him  away  so 
that  he  does  not  fully  see  this  duty  of  which  I  now  speak. 
The  services  of  the  Church,  by  the  joy  and  happiness  which 
he  finds  in  them,  may  degenerate  into  a  kind  of  spiritual 
self-indulgence,  a  bond  of  sweet  communion  between  the 
members  of  the  Church,  half  forgetful  of  their  mission  to 
the  world.  His  sermons  may  unconsciously  address  them- 
selves to  his  own  moods  and  experiences,  or  at  any  rate  be 
such  as  to  reach  and  interest  those  only  who  have  attained  to 
something  of  his  own  point  of  view.  Such  services  and 
such  sermons  may  have  their  place  and  importance  in  the 
life  of  the  Church.  The  zeal  and  energy  and  devotion 
expended  in  the  services  and  worship  of  the  Church  and 
in  the  exercise  of  our  spiritual  faculties  and  affections  are 
a  source  of  power.  The  life  of  the  Church  is  largely  in 
the  devotional  life  of  its  members.  Efforts  directed  upon 
itself  may  do  something  toward  its  own  development.  I 
do  not  deny  it.  There  is  real  power  in  a  church  full  of 
life  and  devotion,  even  when  it  is  not  fully  alive  to  its 
duty  in  positive  aggressive  work.  In  a  manner  it  declares 
the  Word  of  God  and  brings  men  to  a  knowledge  and 
sense  of  the  truth.  But  as  we  are  situated  in  this  particu- 
lar field  the  vast  body  of  our  people  lie  beyond  the  sphere 
of  any  such  influences,  and  we  have  hardly  one  or  two 
congregations  strong  enough  to  exert  any  such  indirect 
power. 

III.  Our  congregations  are  weak  and  scattered.  Our 
Clergy  find  themselves  grappling  with  the  problem  of 
building  the  Church  up  from  the  ground.  Nine-tenths  of 
all  the  work  in  this  Jurisdiction  is  the  work  of  evangeliz- 
ing populations  entirely  ignorant  of  the  better  ways  of  the 
Church.  Even  where  we  have  little  handfuls  of  people 
and  feeble  mission  organizations  our  own  people  in  many 
cases  are  but  ill-instructed,  and  the  sole  prospect  of  growth 
lies  in  aggressive  missionary  work.  Usually  the  mission- 
ary finds  himself  without  house,  school,  or  any  of  the  mate- 
rial which  he  is  accustomed  to  think  of  as  the  necessary 
means  and  instruments  of  successful  enterprise.  Now, 
what  I  wish  to  say  to  you,  my  dear  brethren,  is  that  in 


such  a  situation  the  one  thing  necessary,  that  to  which 
you  must  address  yourself,  is  to  catch  men.  It  is  not  to 
build  school-houses,  or  rectories,  or  even  churches.  It  is 
to  get  men.  It  is  to  lay  hold  upon  the  human  life  of  the 
community.  This  may  seem  to  you  a  truth  so  obvious  to 
notice  that  it  is  hardly  worth  my  while  to  dwell  upon  it, 
or  even  to  state  it.  You  will  all  agree  with  me  at  once 
that  this  is  so.  And  yet  I  tell  you,  my  dear  brethren,  as  a 
result  of  my  observation  and  experience  in  our  missionary 
field,  that  while  we  all  say  this  with  our  lips  we  too  often  do 
not  realize  it  in  our  hearts  or  show  it  in  our  work.  When 
a  missionary  goes  into  such  a  field  as  I  have  indicated  he 
is  tempted  to  think  that  the  first  thing  necessary  is  a  church 
or  a  chapel.  Or,  if  there  be  church  or  chapel  already,  he 
thinks  that  he  must  have  a  school-house  or  a  rectory.  And 
instead  of  putting  his  whole  soul  into  the  work  of  preach- 
ing the  Gospel  to  men,  he  is  tempted  to  put  his  soul  into 
appeals  for  help  to  buy  and  to  build.  He  keeps  up  the 
services  of  the  Church  with  regularity  and  goes  his  rounds 
of  parochial  and  missionary  labors,  but  that  upon  which 
he  spends  himself,  into  which  he  puts  his  hopes  and  efforts 
and  enthusiasm,  and  that  by  which  he  counts  his  success, 
is  this  material  part  of  his  work.  I  suppose  that  one 
thing  for  which  a  Bishop  should  be  of  use  in  the  practical 
life  of  the  Church  is  that  in  overseeing  his  field  he  may 
come  to  a  truer  knowledge  of  its  real  character,  condition, 
and  needs,  than  one  who  is  constantly  occupied  in  pastoral 
or  missionary  work  in  one  part  of  it.  For  nearly  three 
years  I  have  been  overseeing  the  work  in  this  part  of  North 
Carolina.  I  have  made  three  pretty  thorough  visitations 
of  the  whole  field.  I  speak  not  of  any  particular  portion 
of  it,  and  I  do  fully  recognize  the  faithful  work  which  has 
been  done,  and  is  being  done,  in  all  parts  where  we  have 
ministers.  But  I  do  say,  as  the  result  of  careful  observa- 
tion and  reflection,  that  there  is  this  danger  growing  out 
of  our  present  condition  of  needing  so  many  things,  that 
we  may  make  a  mistake  as  to  the  proper  way  of  doing  our 
work,  and  of  obtaining  what  we  need  most  of  all.  It  is  not 
primarily  the  duty  of  a  minister  to  build  churches,  or 
chapels,  or  schools,  or  parsonages.  His  first  duty  where  there 
is  no  church  is  to  preach  to  men,  and  to  bring  them  under 
the  power  of  the  truth,  and  to  minister  to  them  in  spiritual 
things.     Thus  bringing  men  to  the  truth,  he  comes  to  need 


6 


churches  and  all  the  rest.  But  except  as  he  catches  men 
he  has  no  need  for  all  these  things,  and  his  appeal  for  them 
can  have  no  legitimate  basis  except  in  the  success  of  his 
more  important  work  of  catching  men. 

So  long  as  we  look  upon  those  external  things  as  the 
means  whereby  we  must  seek  to  do  our  work,  so  long  will 
the  Church  be  weak  and  helpless.  On  the  other  hand,  so 
soon  as  we  put  the  catching  of  men  first,  and  consider 
these  other  things  as  purely  subordinate  and  secondary,  so 
soon  shall  we  begin  to  lay  hold  with  power  upon  the  com- 
munities where  we  labor.  Get  the  men;  possess  the  life 
and  interest  of  the  community;  and  all  else  will  follow. 
It  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  instances  in  plenty  of 
churches  and  chapels  erected  for  the  purposes  of  housing 
congregations  to  be  caught  by  that  means,  which  stand  yet 
unoccupied,  and  silent  from  month  to  month.  It  will  be 
difficult  to  discover  even  one  single  example  of  a  faithful 
missionary  who  has  built  a  church  of  living  souls,  and 
who  has  failed  to  find  a  material  fabric  in  which  to  house 
them. 

Churches,  chapels,  schools,  organs,  parsonages,  glebes, 
all  the  externals  of  Church  work,  however  necessary,  are 
not  the  life  of  the  Church.  They  are  but  like  the  shell  of 
conch  or  of  the  pearl-oyster,  or  the  stony  envelope  of  the 
coral  insect,  beautiful,  it  may  be,  necessary,  practically 
indispensable,  essentially  associated  with  the  life  as  means 
or  conditions  of  living;  but  they  cannot  make  life.  On 
the  contrary,  life  can  and  does  and  must  make  them. 
Given  the  life,  they  follow.  The  life  secretes  the  shell 
inclosing  it.  So  the  life  of  the  Church,  which  is  the 
grace  of  God  operating  in  and  upon  the  hearts  and  souls 
of  men,  cannot  be  created  by  any  outward  means  or  agen- 
cies, but  on  the  contrary  creates  them.  Spend  therefore 
your  efforts,  your  thought,  your  enthusiasm,  pour  out 
your  very  life  itself  upon  that  Church  which  in  your  sev- 
eral fields  you  are  building  out  of  the  living  stones  of  con- 
verted and  consecrated  men  and  women  and  children,  and 
those  other  lesser  matters  will  come  in  due  time.  Seek 
ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  His  righteousness  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you. 

IV.  As  a  necessary  preliminary  to  catching  men,  we 
must  know  men.  When  a  missionary  enters  upon  any 
field  of  work  the  very  first  thing  he  should  do  is  to  make 


himself  acquainted  with  the  people,  all  the  people.  He 
must  not  wait  for  the  people  to  seek  him  out;  he  is  sent  by 
his  Master  to  seek  them  out.  He  is  not  to  hamper  himself 
or  limit  his  work  and  acquaintance  and  friendships  by 
social  conventionalities.  He  must  use  these  means  and 
conditions  of  mutual  intercourse,  but  not  be  ruled  by  them. 
He  must  make  himself  the  friend  of  all.  He  represents 
the  love  of  God,  and  the  love  of  God  is  a  real  love,  not  a 
form  of  words.  And  if  the  minister  of  Christ  has  really 
come  to  know  the  love  of  Christ  he  will  find  a  way  to  the 
love  and  confidence  of  the  people  among  whom  he  lives. 
There  is  no  such  source  of  strength  and  influence  in  the 
ministry  as  this  of  knowing  and  loving  the  people  to  whom 
we  minister.  The  difference  between  a  ministry  founded 
on  this  close  relation  between  us  and  our  people  and  a 
ministry  merely  diligent  in  services  and  functions  is  sim- 
ply the  difference  between  a  ministry  successful  in  catch- 
ing men  and  one  which  is  not  thus  successful.  There  is 
perhaps  room  in  a  strong,  rich,  prosperous  church  for  the 
mere  ecclesiastic,  the  functionary,  but  in  a  missionary 
church  he  is  an  incumbrance  and  a  weakness.  The  people 
of  our  mountain  country  for  the  most  part  know  nothing 
about  the  Church,  and  in  too  many  instances  have  been 
carefully  taught  to  hate  it.  The  mere  performance  of  the 
services  of  the  Church  will  have  no  influence  on  them 
whatever.  They  will  not  listen  and  do  not  understand  our 
arguments  and  explanations.  But  they  have  hearts  and 
they  can  appreciate  a  good  man  if  they  come  to  know  him. 
I  believe  the  superiority  of  the  Church  is  seen  in  the  supe- 
riority of  the  man  and  woman  whom  she  forms  and  devel- 
opes.  Therefore  I  charge  you,  my  brethren  of  the  Clergy, 
to  live  among  the  people  whom  you  serve  and  to  cultivate 
their  acquaintance,  and  to  know  them  in  their  families 
and  in  the  workshops  and  fields;  and  let  them  see  how 
Christ  by  you  loves  and  seeks  them,  and  when  they  come 
to  know  this  they  will  begin  to  care  something  about  the 
Church,  and  not  until  then.  Of  all  the  hollow  and  hope- 
less failures  that  is  the  hollowest  and  most  hopeless  of  the 
missionary  who  does  not  thus  build  upon  the  love  of  God 
for  man,  not  merely  proclaimed  from  the  pulpit  but  mani- 
fested in  himself  and  exercised  upon  the  people  whom  he 
serves.  The  minister  of  the  Gospel  who  in  declaring  God's 
love  does  not  express  his  own  love,  and  who  does  not  feel 


himself  growing  in  actual  love  to  the  individuals  of  his 
flock,  so  that  he  longs  for  their  love  and  values  their  regard, 
had  better  stop  and  examine  himself  and  make  a  new 
start,  and  try  to  get  into  the  right  way.  He  may  minister 
a  sacrament,  and  that  may  have  value,  but  he  will  prepare 
very  few  persons  to  receive  a  sacrament  duly,  and  he  will 
teach  very  few  to  desire  or  to  seek  the  sacraments  and 
means  of  grace. 

V.  And  thus  knowing  the  people  whom  you  serve,  and 
loving  them,  you  will  speak  to  them  that  which  they  really 
need  to  know  and  that  which  they  will  understand.  In 
order  to  speak  the  truth  effectively  we  must  not  only  know 
the  truth;  we  must  also  know  our  hearers;  and  we  must 
adapt  our  message  to  our  hearers.  We  must  learn  to  give 
them  what  they  need  in  such  a  way  that  they  will  feel  that  it 
is  what  they  need.  The  noblest  conception  of  truth 
expressed  in  the  most  eloquent  language  has  no  value  to 
the  man  whose  hearing  is  so  defective  that  he  cannot  hear 
the  preacher.  Now,  suppose  that  instead  of  physical  deaf- 
ness it  is  an  intellectual  or  moral  obstruction  which  keeps 
the  preacher's  message  from  coming  home  to  him;  in  this 
case  also  the  preaching  is  equally  thrown  away.  Now,  I 
know,  my  dear  brethren,  from  my  own  experience  that  our 
sermons  sometimes  fail  utterly  because  we  do  not  adapt 
them  to  our  audience.  We  go  off  upon  some  interesting 
line  of  argument  or  of  reflection  which  pleases  us,  and 
leave  our  hearers  behind.  Preaching  implies  a  hearer  as 
well  as  a  speaker.  When  there  ceases  to  be  a  hearer  there 
ceases  to  be  a  preacher  in  any  real  or  useful  sense  of  the 
word.  Our  discourse  may  be  learned,  eloquent,  true,  but 
unless  it  be  a  word  spoken  from  our  heart  to  the  heart  of 
the  man  to  whom  we  are  sent,  it  is  not  the  word  which 
Christ  has  sent  us  to  speak.  We  hear  of  sermons  above 
the  heads  of  the  hearers;  the  trouble  with  such  sermons 
is  not  that  they  go  above  the  heads  of  the  hearers, 
but  that  they  do  not  come  out  of  the  heart  and  con- 
conscience  of  the  preacher.  He  is  speaking  to  himself 
or  to  some  imaginary  audience,  and  not  to  the  people  before 
him.      "The  hungry  sheep  look  up  and  are  not  fed." 

But  I  will  not  further  enlarge  upon  a  matter  in  which 
many  of  you  might  teach  me.  I  ask  you  to  think  of  what 
I  have  said  and  to  remember  that  I  do  not  speak  as  feeling 
myself  competent  to  instruct  you,  but  as   being   in    God's 


9 


providence  called  to  oversee  your  work,  and  therefore 
bound  to  point  out,  as  best  I  can,  the  things  needed,  and 
the  means  of  best  furthering  our  holy  enterprise  of  build- 
ing up  God's  kingdom.  I  charge  you  as  good  stewards  of 
the  mysteries  of  God,  as  ambassadors  for  Christ,  to  remem- 
ber that  you  are  sent  to  the  life  of  the  world,  to  lay  hold  upon 
it,  to  convert  it,  to  win  it  for  God.  That  is  the  great  end  of 
your  ministry,  the  glory  of  God  in  the  salvation  of  men.  You 
are  setting  forth  God's  glory  and  making  full  proof  of  your 
ministry  just  so  far  as  you  are  bringing  men  and  women 
and  children  to  know  God  and  to  become  sharers  of  the 
divine  life.  That  is  the  purpose  of  your  ministry,  and  that 
alone.  By  that  you  shall  be  judged  at  the  last.  I  beseech 
you  judge  yourselves  by  that  now. 

Jos.  Blount  Cheshire,  Jr. 


